Roe's Shakespeare Guide to Italy out next week

Richard Paul Roe's book, The Shakespeare Guide to Italy: Retracing the Bard's Unknown Travels, (Harper Collins, 2011) goes on sale November 8, 2011 at Amazon and other bookstores. The book is sold in trade paperback and ebook formats. A starred review in Library Journal said:

A fascinating look at a largely untouched aspect of Shakespeare's identity and influences. Recommended for Shakespeare enthusiasts and scholars as well as travelers looking for a new perspective, this is also particularly intriguing as a companion to specific plays.

Twenty years of meticulous research at the sites of Shakespeare plays in Italy make this posthumously published work of particular interest to those interested in the Shakespeare authorship question. According to the publisher:

Using the text from Shakespeare's ten "Italian Plays" as his only compass, Roe determined the exact locations of nearly every scene in Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, The Tempest, and the remaining dramas set in Italy. His chronicle of travel, analysis, and discovery paints with unprecedented clarity a picture of what the Bard must have experienced before penning his plays. Equal parts literary detective story and vivid travelogue -- containing copious annotations and more than 150 maps, photographs, and paintings -- The Shakespeare Guide to Italy is a unique, compelling, and deeply provocative journey that will forever change our understanding of how to read the Bard . . . and irrevocably alter our vision of who William Shakespeare really was.

. . .

In addition to executing a private legal practice for more than 40 years, Richard Paul Roe undertook a lifelong study of Shakespeare's Italian plays. A recipient of degrees in English literature and European history from the University of California at Berkeley, as well as a juris doctor summa cum laude from from the Southwestern University School of Law, he lived in Pasadena, California, until his death in 2010.

More information available at Harper Collins Publishers.

What's a popp'rin' pear?

James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said. “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.” She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out the naug

Winkler lights the match

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Winkler drops the mic

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Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

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